Follow TV Tropes

Following

The Stoic / Webcomics

Go To


  • Sebastian in The Back o' Beyond manages to restrain his emotions extremely well around the captain of the pirates immediately after his father's death. However, he does have some Not So Stoic moments when he's alone.
  • The Comic Adventures of Left & Right: Rarely does Owldog break his default facial expression.
  • (Tiffany) Susan Pompoms of El Goonish Shive is the rare female Shell-Shocked Veteran, although her Vulcan "shoulder angel" would have you think of another related trope.
  • Played with in Erfworld. Master-class Lookamancers have complete control of their body language and normally any expressions or gestures they make are conscious decisions. However, Issac sees the value in body language as a non-verbal channel of communication and does things like allow himself to scowl and fold his arms when someone suggests an idea he dislikes to show his disapproval of the idea.
  • Sara in Errant Story, almost never talks. The characters occasionally make fun of her for it, as seen above. (What's amusing is that her brother Jon sees himself like this, although he fits more into the Tall, Dark, and Snarky class.)
  • Existential Comics: While the actual Stoic philosophy was more complicated than just the stereotype, some of their views indeed embodied this, as illustrated here.
  • Girl Genius:
    • Airman Third Class Axel Higgs has faced everything from airship crashes to angry swans to rampaging warrior Clanks with a cool head, a talent for thinking on his feet, and a slightly bored expression on his face. The only thing that appears to faze him is Zeetha (who, to be fair to Higgs, gleefully dove into a barfight composed entirely of Jagermonsters).
    • For those of you who don't know jagermonsters are supersoldiers all of whom have decades or even centuries of combat experience, so it takes quite a badass to brawl with them.
    • Higgs is not a true stoic. He does show emotions, and in fact runs the gamut from mild annoyance to considerable annoyance. (He's exhibited surprise a couple of times also, but it takes a lot to prompt this reaction from him.)
  • Biscuit in Goblins is a member of the Roak clan, who train their warriors to openly accept pain and loss, and to never burden themselves with negative emotions. After being freed from 600 years of demonic torture and learning that the rest of the Roak clan was wiped out 200 years ago, his only response is 'Meh, oh well.'
  • Edith of Godslave takes everything that comes her way pretty much in stride, barely ever showing any hints of strong emotions.
  • Grim Trigger has Grandin, who hardly showed any emotion when his own country was overthrown. Not to mention it was by his own commander who was holding a scythe to his throat.
  • Antimony Carver and Miss Jones from Gunnerkrigg Court.
  • Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name:
    • The nameless zombie narrator does show emotion. Sometimes. He's a master of the Fascinating Eyebrow, has been known to look pretty alarmed when it's unavaidable, and gets visibly upset when Hanna has been harmed. However, Hanna keeps track of how many times he's seen him smile, and it doesn't come out to much. He also doesn't care much at all about the fact he's lost his memory.
    • Finas also seems to fit this category, though Word of God states that he does actually smile "when the situation warrants it".
  • Homestuck:
    • Dave Strider hides himself in cool irony and refuses to show emotion. His brother raised him to be independent and never show weakness (Emotion being one). As they progress in the game Dave becomes more worried and asks Rose how John is doing when he can't contact him. He also casually asks her for psychoanalysis on his dreams. At one point when being pestered by Terezi a future Dave gives him the thumbs up after she asks if he can trust her. A big part of Dave's Character Development lies in realizing he is different from his brother, and can be his own man; he reveals himself Not So Stoic as a consequence. The Alpha iteration of Bro, though, is this trope to a tee.
    • Dirk has his own problems with this trope. His flat affect and alexithymic tendencies are genuine, it seems, but these actually cause him trouble in communicating with people. His incredible stoicness is among the many reasons his relationship with Jake ends up as it does. He is also dealing with major depression and self-loathing while not actually expressing it - consciously, at least.
    • Rose has similar problems, particularly her inability to trust her friends. Played with in the form of Roxy, who is basically a female Dave minus the stoicism.
  • Asia Ellis from morphE is emotionally stunted and has not shown a smile in the first two chapters. To date her only emotional reactions have been related to her guardian, Ken.
  • Hayato Toda of Mousou Telepathy is only outwardly stoic, and has been so ever since he was little. His family can figure him out fine, and his friends have somewhat adapted to him, but everyone around him largely doesn't know what to do around him or figure out what he's thinking because he's not an easy read or physically expressive enough. It's a good thing that his love interest is a mind reader.
  • Broom Girl from Never Satisfied nearly always keeps a straight face.
  • Raizel from Noblesse, who spoke as much as (or even less than) random throwaway villains over the course of 185 chapters. His facial expression neverchanges, and the most emotional he ever got was during his Tranquil Fury moment.
  • Zz'dtri, Vaarsuvius's evil counterpart in The Order of the Stick, barely talks and keeps a straight face almost at all times. He does however let out an evil grin every once in a while. It's meant to make him a foil to Vaarsuvius' Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness.
  • Hiddenite in The Shufflers very rarely shows any expression. When he smiles or when he reacts in horror, it’s treated as an appropriately dramatic moment.
  • A Simple Thinking About Blood Type portrays Type ABs as calm, aloof and critical. In one strip, the other blood types agree that AB has the best poker face of them all.
  • Riff in Sluggy Freelance. Though he's developed a greater range of emotion, he's still deadpan more often than not, and prone to Tranquil Fury. Stoicism around women in particular is a front he's carefully cultivated to prevent himself from sticking his foot in his mouth.
  • Stand Still, Stay Silent:
    • Lalli:
      • Due to his Cloud Cuckoolander tendencies, he didn't realize his cousin had signed both of them up for an exploration mission in a Forbidden Zone before they were already on the boat for the first leg of the trip. The three other members of the crew, including their new captain, are all complete strangers that don't speak Lalli's language. Lalli's main duty on the mission is to find a path for their Awesome Personnel Carrier in a Ghost City during nightime, when his work experience consists of at least six years of doing that work in the forest surrounding his home military base. On his first night doing this, his cousin decides at the last minute that he should maybe at least do this during the day due to it being a completely new place to him. Lalli's reaction boils down to "I understand what the new captain wants me to do, see you in the morning.".
      • This also shows during the first major crisis of the crew, that ends up netting them a Little Stowaway. Young man turns out to be in a newly delivered food crate? Lalli couldn't care less (though the panel preceding the reveal hints he already knew someone was in there). Upon a closer look, the young man in question turns out to share an unusal hairstyle with that stranger Lalli spotted in the mage-exlcusive dreamspace a couple of days ago? Lalli may have spent an hour or two continuously staring at him at first, but is all but ignoring him by the next morning.
    • Mikkel also. Getting yelled at by someone with No Indoor Voice or whatever idiotic thing his teammates are up to will be taken in stride. He will also wear the exact same neutral expression whether he's announcing that they've run out of food early or trolling the teammates in question for his own amusement.
  • Tower of God:
    • Jue Viole Grace. His emotions can only be read from his actions and the rare occasions when we catch a glimpse of what is going on in his head. He has his reasons.
    • Hwaryun barely reacts to anything less than losing an eye — and even then, it seemed to be only from the pain. It might be because she's a Guide who can see the future in a limited way and usually knows exactly where she is and where she's going, although other Guides aren't all stoics.
  • Frank from Two Guys and Guy never shows any emotion under any circumstances. One strip on the subject ends with a doctor yelling at Wayne and Guy, implying it's the result of brain damage.
  • Weak Hero:
    • Gray Yeon is naturally reserved and rarely shows emotion that isn't the occasional flash of anger directed towards his bullies. It takes many battles with Ben's gang at his side for Gray to acknowledge them as his friends and slowly open himself up to them.
    • Kingsley is always composed, with a constantly blank expression and a calm, business-orientated thought process. Given his boss is an Invincible Villain, he has good reason to keep himself in line.


Top